Jason Street Makes it Back
by Errant Kitten
Summary: A more detailed story of Jason Street going from quarterback to quadriplegic...to successful citizen!
1. Chapter 1

Jason Street pushed his chair away from the hospital window. Why the hell would Riggins and Lyla take him out for a night of partying, and then make out in the parking lot of the hospital?

I mean, they were his friends, right? If Lyla didn't love him, the least she could do is break up with him, or actually get out of the parking lot of the hospital before she began sucking face with an idiot like Tim Riggins.

Was it all over the team? Were Smash and Bobby Torres talking about how Lyla was cheating on the poor cripple, the team mascot? It was more than Jason could take.

Things were getting a little better—Jason enjoyed watching quad rugby, and hoped he could play in a few months. Some days he actually woke up now not wanting to kill himself, it was not horrible. But then something like this happens. God damn Lyla. Fuck Riggins. This was total bullshit.

Jason grabbed the wheels of his chair, awkwardly, (those damn fingers just wouldn't work right) and pushed himself out of his room, cursing silently. If Lyla wanted to break up, that was one thing, but she really should be able to make up her fuckin' mind.

"You look a little depressed."

Jason looked up, resentfully. Someone else to get in his business, like everyone else at the rehab center. Who was this? A strawberry blonde, pretty…also in a chair. But she was obviously not using her hands to push the wheels, she had a joystick.

"Hey, I'm Taryn. I just got transferred to this floor. The ninth floor has some kinda asbestos problem."

"Oh, uh, I'm Jason. Ninth floor's kind of a permanent resident floor, right?" How could anyone live in this hell-hole for their entire life?

"Yup." Taryn smiled. "I've got Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, and I've been a patient here on and off since I was seven. I'm sixteen now." She smiled as she revealed this depressing information, and yes, she had nice dimples.

Taryn looked at the ceiling, and spoke again. "I got used to it, after a while. You know, watching "All My Children" with the geriatrics in the middle of the day, wheeling down to the front lobby to see if there were any new snacks in the vending machines. Time went by."

"Seriously?" Jason asked, incredulous. "You got used to this?"

"Unfortunately, sometimes the people at the hospital treated me more normally than my own parents—and then my mom died and my dad left, and my aunt put me in foster homes, and shit, after that I looked forward to this place. I just hope they don't put me in a nursing home before I'm twenty, you know what I mean?" Taryn grinned, and Jason watched freckles gather around her little pug nose. She was cute, he had to say that.

"I'm um, I've been here for only—"

"No, I heard. Big football star. Just getting used to the County rehab center, are we?"

"You must've talked to Herc. He's always giving me shit about my big athletic past."

"Yeah, Herc is kind of the tough love type." Taryn smiled. "Hey, who were those guys who were visiting? Is that your girlfriend?"

Jason swallowed. "Well, one of them is Tim Riggins, he's sort of an old buddy" Sort of. "And the other is my high school girlfriend Lyla, though I'm not sure how that's playing out, now that the accident is…" Jason paused. "I just saw them making out by Lyla's car, after they spent the day with me. It's total bullshit."

"They took you out for the day?" Taryn smiled. "That must've been cool."

"Yeah, sure, we went out drinkin' and stuff, I really liked it, but damn, it hurts that they'd fool around after they left me."

"I find it's better to focus on the positive part of the day, Jason, even if it didn't go all that well at the end, you know?" Taryn leaned forward a bit, and Jason watched her long curls bounce on her chest. "I'd kill for someone to take me out for a party, you know?"

"But you don't get it, Lyla's cheating on me. She was making out with me this afternoon, and now she's fooling around with HIM." Jason wondered if Taryn was a little retarded.

"Stuff changes after we go in the chair, I guess, though I've been in this situation a lot longer than you have. But I remember when your friend Herc lost his girlfriend, and he was crying a little, Jason."

Jason couldn't imagine Herc crying. Herc seemed indomitable. "I gotta go back to my room. Physical therapy tomorrow."

"Well, good night then." Her very cute feminine voice floated over Jason as he wheeled himself back to the room with his still almost immobile hands.

Would he ever be able to make a fist again? If he did, he'd punch Riggins out. That was the answer to all this. Jason couldn't believe all this was happening to him. Riggins was like a dog, he must've broken up with Tyra, and now he just couldn't control himself, he had to hump Lyla. Well, it was disgusting. Freakin' disgusting.

That night, as he tried to get to sleep, Jason wondered if it were such a big deal anyway. He couldn't feel anything below his chest, so it wasn't like he could do his business with Lyla anyway, right?

But what a change—he'd been such a big shot. Not just a big jock, like Tim, but also an honor student who didn't need the Rally Girls to do his homework for him. And since Pee Wee football, he'd had people coming out to see him play.

He couldn't fuck; he couldn't go fishing, no more biking. It was really a drag.

But Taryn was cute…she really lit up the hallway. He'd see her tomorrow, that was something, right?


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm sorry, Tom, but there's nothing I can do, your timing linkage broke, and it blew your engine, and our warranty says your timing linkage has to be changed at 10,5000 miles—" Edwin " Buddy" Garrity Jr. grinned at the little sweating man. Buddy wondered if his hair was still curling on his shoulders. Pam's curler was for shit.

Beautiful long gray hair…it made Buddy look like James Brolin.

"But when I bought the van from you, there was already 119,000 miles on it!" Tom looked as if he would stomp his foot. Buddy hated negative types. Back in Vacation Bible Camp, Tom and his whiny brothers would complain if someone just flicked 'em with a towel at the swimming hole.

Buddy Garrity hated his used car customers. Negative Nellies, and always too loser-ish to have the scratch to get something new. But Buddy Sr. had instructed his son from his deathbed to keep the used cars in the company. "Worked for me since I sold DeSotos and Edsels, boy."

As Tom opened his mouth again, Buddy Garrity put a finger to his lips. "I know it's hard these days to make it, and keep a vehicle running. We all have problems, Tom. Jason Street, the quarterback for the Panthers, he's paralyzed now, from the chest down, poor boy."

"I'm—I'm sorry, Buddy." Now Tom was shamefaced. "I know it must affect you—we all remember when you took the team to State back in '81, and you were a quarterback. But about this warranty—"

Buddy smiled dreamily. He had been showing Buddy III his scrapbook just last night, those 40 yard line shots that Daddy took of him running. But Buddy Three wasn't interested in anything but Pokemon cards, and, we could just hope he's not a homosexual.

"Did—here's a revolutionary idea, Tom—did you ever think of takin' some of the energy you have for this pitiful little complaint that you made, walking in here on your two legs, which poor Jason Street can't no more—and using that vim and vigor to write Jason a card, maybe send him a care package—"

"But Buddy, I need transportation, I can't get to work!" Tom's eyes were getting red. Buddy worried that Tom wasn't getting enough B vitamin.

"Tom, I'll tell you what. I don't do this for all my customers, but I'll lend you one of the Vespa scooters over there until you have the money to pay for a new timing linkage, and frankly, a new alternator, I don't know why you bought—" 

"Because YOU SOLD IT TO ME!"

"Take the Vespa, Tom. Just take it, get out of here, forget Jason Street, paralyzed from the neck down, practically dead, poor boy,trying to bring glory to your town as I did while you was malingering as vice president of the Chess Club.

Before Tom could speak, Buddy went on "—and don't tell me Eulalie needs a car in the interim, because the Piggle-Wiggle is four blocks from your house, and the last time I saw Eulalie, she could use a little exercise. Go on; get out of here, ask Juan to give you the keys to the rusty scooter on the end, before I change my mind."

After watching Tom stomp out of the office like a little bitch, Buddy winked at Tanis. Thank Christ she ain't sulking; she was mighty disappointed when Buddy cancelled their plans for the Best Western…didn't she think Buddy was disappointed? After all, he bought her that latex nurse outfit, cost four hundred bucks!

But tonight Buddy was going to be driven home by his beautiful daughter, head cheerleader Lyla…didn't she look nice out there? And she always shaved her armpits, unlike some of the sodden obese sluts on the pom-pom squad. Buddy should talk to Eric about that…Coach Taylor didn't manage the squad, sure, but did he really want, well frankly, visual clutter out there on the field? How could that spur the boys on?

Buddy remembered Taffy, the Rally Girl who he'd impregnated…she'd raised all kind of hell, but Daddy had given her some money, and gotten her engaged to Harelip Dave in the Garrity Motors parts department…happy ending for all, though it was a shame about her suicide in '96.

"Daddy?"

Buddy looked up and his face brightened—there was his beautiful girl—full lips, dark eyes, all that long pretty hair. Pam and Buddy had had a brief separation after his interlude with her sister.

Pam had been seeing an Environmental Economics instructor from the junior college for a while, good looking fellow, and when Lyla was born, right after Pam and Buddy were reunited, well, Professor Tomlinson was a good looking fellow, and Lyla was a spittin' image.

But, Buddy loved her anyways, and would do anything for his precious princess, who everybody thought was his own, anyway. Lyla was bright, a straight A student, but not smart in the business way like Buddy and his daddy…but he got all the credit for her, and was quite pleased about this.

"Darlin' how you doin'? How was school?" Buddy grinned as Lyla sat down on the chair across from his desk.

"Well, Daddy, I cut my afternoon classes and went to see Jason at the hospital, sorry."

"Well darlin' I played lots of hookey m'self, failed second, fifth and ninth grade because of it, but there's all kinds of ways to learn, right?"

Buddy was pleased that his baby daughter wasn't abandoning young Street, her boyfriend of two years just yet, but he hoped she understood that there was no real reason to hang on too long.

After all, the boy wasn't going to walk again, ever."

"I think Jason will walk again, Daddy."

"Of course he will, darlin' with determination and the help of the Lord."

I mean, I don't want my little honeycakes to be a nurse for a damn vegetable now, do I? Buddy wondered if Jason could sell cars in the chair. Would that guilt people into buying cars? Or repel them? Still, he couldn't give up Lyla, his little pot of gold, to risk it."

Lyla spoke hesitantly. "I have to tell you, Daddy…Jason seemed kind of distant today. He talked about maybe breaking up, like he's ready to move on."

Immediately, Buddy Garrity was enraged. Some cripple thought he was too good for little Lyla? What kind of shit was THAT?"

Behind Lyla, in the window of Garrity Motors, Tom from Vacation Bible Camp dispiritedly started the rusty Vespa and puttered on down the road.


	3. Chapter 3

Brian "Smash" Williams walked down the hall of this weird-ass hospital they got Jason Street at. Girl looking at him. She in a wheelchair. Cripple girl. Checkin out the Smash. Well, that's natural. The star running back of the Dillon Panthers decided to be gracious, throw a little love.

"How you doing?" The Smash asked graciously, stopping in front of little redhead's chair.

"Hey, I'm Taryn. Visiting Jason?" Nice smile, an' some titties too.

Lookin at me. Two tragedies: in that chair, and she hopelessly in love with the Smash. Brian Williams felt genuinely sorry for her, but he certainly couldn't marry every Texas girl who was smitten, especially one who couldn't move.

"Yeah. He's sleepin' though. I was in that game that got him um, fuck-no, cripple—the game that got him handicapped, so he can't move." She going to want to kiss me.

"It's great that you came. Jason's had a few visitors, but most of his teammates seem to not have come, perhaps because they feel guilty about what happened."

Guilty? What the Smash need to feel guilty about? Damn, girl. "Uh, well, I am glad that I dropped on by. You know, I could do nothing to protect him. He tackled someone else, Jason Street did, and I had—"

"Oh, no, of course not. I was just theorizing as to why it's been mostly girls visiting, girls and family members."

Girls? How many? Shit, I got my spleen out after the Arnett Mead game, eight girls came, counting my sister, nine, did Street get more women visitors?

Smash ain't no chump, baby. Girl's still talking. White women are some Chatty Cathys. But, mouth's all the poor bitch can move.

"I mean, the cheerleaders and the rally girls, I sense they don't feel responsible, and of course Jason has a sort of doomed appeal, I guess. Kind of Brian Piccolo meets James Dean. But I might be woolgathering."

Doomed appeal. Maybe wheelchair girl, she got the hots in her drawers for Jason Street. The Smash shook his head.

There was a noise down the hall, and approaching were a tall boy with reddish blond hair and another dark haired one.

"That's Landry Clarke" The Smash said to Taryn, sotto voce. "I call him Cobra Eyes. T'other one is Matt Saracen, he going to be taking over as quarterback. He got lucky in the games lately, since the Smash running interference for him.

Taryn looked up at the Smash sunnily. "You have a firm sense of self esteem don't you? I kind of admire that. It's been difficult for me, feeling good about myself sometimes."

The Smash awkwardly patted Taryn on the head. "You be all right, baby. If you want, we can get a picture together."

Landry Clarke was saying oracularly, "This is our time. We're going to be the flashing stars of Texas high school football, and the ladies—"

In unison, as they approached, the Smash and Matt Saracen said "Shut up, Landry, you're not on the team."

"Hey y'all. Street's asleep. This Taryn, his little friend." The Smash said, patting Taryn on the shoulder this time.

"Aw, that's good" Matt Saracen said uneasily. "I didn't know what I was going to say. I barely knew him on the team, 'cause I was always on the B team—"

"Riding the bench" Landry Clarke said helpfully.

"Yeah, what's that bench feel like, Saracen?" The Smash asked, grinning. "I never been on it."

Landry leaned over and shook Taryn's limp hand. "I'm Landry Clarke. It's so good to see that Jason has enchanting female company here in the rehab center."

Landry think he can get some of crippled girl. She don't see nothing but the Smash. Smash watched Landry babble on, leaning over Taryn's wheelchair. That would be a sad hay-roll, produce an ugly cobra-eyed child who couldn't walk.

"Well you know, guys," Taryn was saying, "Jason's just been taking short naps. He probably will awaken again, and would love to see you three. It's barely mid-afternoon."

"I guess we can hang around for a while." Matt Saracen said, looking doubtfully at Landry.

"Well, I do have band practice, you know." Landry replied.

"All the practice in the world won't—" Matt shook his head. "Stay away from the amp, so your parents don't' suffer, Landry."

"How unhelpful of an envious friend." Landry said, turning to Taryn. "My band, Crucifictorius is really up and coming, sort of a deep metal blues thing. Maybe they could play here at the rehab center."

"Aw man. Haven't these poor disabled people been through enough?" The Smash asked.

"I saw some sad motherfucker with nubs instead of hands wheel by here, and you want to blow off his ears too with that nasty bass guitar of yours?"

Taryn chortled. "So there is a mixed reception to your talents, Landry?"

Landry shook his head grievously. "Well, what can I say, Taryn? I think Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain went through a difficult time in their early—"

"Maybe that's why Kurt off himself." Smash said to Matt. "He got a demo tape for Crucifictorius."

"Stop that!" scolded Taryn. "Kurt Cobain has been dead since we were all about three years old." She smiled at Landry. "Perhaps you can come on our Talent night. We have it once a month. Jason said when he gets his hands moving again, he might even play banjo."

The Smash felt he had done enough here. These banged up people in they wheelchairs, no hands, no legs, playing amateur banjo and listening to Landry Clarke. Damn glad I didn't get all paralyzed and have to live here.

But that couldn't happen to me, right? I'm the Smash!


	4. Chapter 4

Taryn admired the little blond girl's bangs. Like someone from the "Brady Bunch." Growing up here at the Center, Taryn had chain-smoked and watched old re-runs in the North Wing Lounge from about age nine…and Julie Taylor looked like Cindy.

The father, Coach Taylor looked angrily at his daughter. "You see that?" the Coach pointed at Taryn, placidly in her chair. "That's a girl with problems. But she's not complainin' She's finishing high school in this…sanitarium."

"Not really." Taryn smiled at Julie Taylor. "Mostly I watch a lot of Tivo. My social worker got it for me… and I read " " on the Web. I haven't been in school since seventh grade."

"That sounds like kind of a cool life." Julie Taylor smiled. The coach looked enraged. Why was he wearing a baseball cap? Men in baseball caps were so Nineties, Taryn considered.

"Well-well you don't feel sorry for yourself, right?" The coach demanded this, staring in Taryn's eyes, while sneaking glances at the now snickering Julie.

"Oh sure I do." Taryn said breezily. "I'd throw myself off a bridge, but the battery wiring my little scooter would probably die out before I reached the Dillon overpass."

As Julie rocked with laughter, the coach decided it was time to visit Jason Street in his room.

"Dad's not always such a tool" Julie said apologetically. "He's just pissed because I'm spending way too much time with his new quarterback, I guess."

She paused. "I haven't really had the um, romantic pull before Matt, and now I'm over at his place, day and night. Dad even made Matt watch old game tapes to get him not to see me, so I went over there to watch them with him."

Taryn thought of Dr. Chastek, laying her out in the tub room and going down on her. "Eatin' ain't cheatin" was how Doc, married father of six had put it…but Mollie, Taryn's social worker always had that question in her eyes.

Then Doc had met Everette, the slut-nurse, and Taryn had been set aside with nothing to look forward to. But she knew what Julie meant by "the pull."

"I guess you're talking about Matt Saracen?" Taryn said, smiling. "I saw him and his friend Landry, and black guy called the Smush here the other day."

"The Smash? Yes, bit of an ego, that one." Julie paused. "I guess that would teach my dad a lesson if I told him I was dating the Smash. Jesus."

What would it be like to date a football player? Or to just, like, walk down a high school hall? Taryn could move three fingers of one hand, which she used to manipulate her um, vehicle…it was like a foreign country, listening to Julie talk.

"What did you think of Matt?" Julie said excitedly. "He's really something, but he's not too talkative."

Taryn thought of Doc, how he'd gently massage her, as she lay on the table, and their great talks about Kurt Vonnegut and the Rolling Stones. It was hard to enthuse over a fellow sixteen year old, but Matt wasn't any worse than the other boys, she guessed. Especially Landry, who practically drooled on her during last week's visit.

That was what Dr. Chastek had been so great about—he treated us like a friendship—two friends who had something more, not a fumbling idiot adolescent. Two years of the tub room…and now it was gone.

"I thought Matt Saracen was kind of cute" Taryn said diplomatically. "I saw him on TV, they were interviewing the team, but Matt wouldn't say anything except that he hoped Jason would make a full recovery." She paused. "He didn't go on about what he would do for the Panthers as a QB, and I admired that."

Still though, he looks like Howdy Doody or something from "The Waltons" (Damn, my re-runs are OLD)

"Jason's kind of a nice guy." Julie said helpfully. "Maybe you could you know—"

That's great, thought Taryn. Because neither of us can walk, it just stands to reason that we should start dating, or even get married. I wonder if Julie knows that with Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, I'll probably be dead before I'm twenty.

God, I miss Doc. That's a man. Even when I wanted to reciprocate for the oral, 'cause I can move my mouth, he just said he wanted my lips for kissing….

"But about Jason?" Julie interrupted Taryn's reverie.

"Well, we don't' talk much, Jason and I" said Taryn carefully. "He's gone from being pissed off about the accident to being pissed that he can't join the quad rugby team yet, so that's progress, right?"

"Now Dad told me about that. They crash their chairs into each other, damaging their wheelchairs? Over a ball? That sounds stupider than real football." Julie cocked her head.

"Well, guys never stop being macho." Taryn mused. "I know one dude on the fourth floor who is paralyzed from the neck down, in sort of an iron lung. So he spends his time getting the nurse to feed him Red Man chewing tobacco so he can use his only moving part—his mouth—to cuss and spit."

"Yeah, my dad is kind of macho, but not in a nasty way, usually" Julie said, smiling. "He's kinda pissed right now, about Matt and all, but he's not nearly the ass-kicker type my Grand-dad was, Grand-dad, he was about seventy, and looked like that guy in the white coat over there."

Taryn looked. "Yeah, that's Doc—Dr. Chastek. I guess he's probably sixty or so."

"Dude, that guy's about seventy, too. Look at the age spots on his head."

Taryn looked, perhaps for the first time. Yup. Doc's a senior citizen. So he's old… I guess there's no arguing with that romantic pull, though.


	5. Chapter 5

Mac McGill (even he had to fumble for his license to remember what his first name was) the offensive coordinator for the Dillon Panthers, looked doubtfully at Matt Saracen, who was fumbling around in his equipment locker.

He looks so much like Jeff, Mac thought, and felt a little guilty stab of regret. Jeff had asked Mac not to contact him in Iraq, unless Matthew was having problems, and Mac had certainly honored that, though he missed Jeff terribly.

Mac sighed and went back into his office. Although he'd been a good running back in his day, and received a State ring right along with quarterback Buddy Garrity and the rest, Mac had never really gone for the cloying appreciation of the cheerleaders and the rally girls. (Though he'd appreciated little Eloise Phipps who had done his math homework for the three years he'd been on the team.)

Mac had been a guy's guy, and enjoyed horsing around with the fellows, although he'd not suspected how much of the friendly wrestling and occasional Playboy-enthused circle jerks in Danny O'Dell's tree house he, Mac had depended on, until high school was finished…

At Laredo State U, Mac had discovered that boys met for friendly "stuff" in the second floor restroom in the Agribusiness building, and although Mac didn't study any of that, he was an extensive visitor to that john.

Meeting Betsy his senior year had been nice—she reminded Mac of his mother, and although he wasn't moony over her, Mac knew he had to give up childishness of this guy thing—he wasn't any fairy after all, no sir.

But after they were married, and Mac had started out as a gym teacher at the junior high, he'd found himself visiting amorous parks and very secluded bars—but again, it was just horsing around, right? When he'd read of the AIDS thing, Mac and his friends wore the little Trojan raincoat…

And, all might have just gone that way, Betsy was happy with three daughters, and Mac only visited the park now and then, really. But then he'd met Jeff Saracen, a beautiful young man just out of high school, and they'd started a "temporary" thing that had lasted almost fifteen years. Jeff, in an attempt to go straight, had impregnated little whats-her-face, who had been puzzled by Jeff's lack of interest in her, and then run away after catching Mac and Jeff in Jeff's potting shed.

Then poor little Mattie, Jeff's son had to be raised by old Lorraine Saracen, the ditzy grandmother. Jeff couldn't accept the fun he'd had with Mac as harmless, and so after September 11th of '01, he'd enlisted, and stayed away…Was it Mac's fault? Perhaps.

Why was Mac still not head coach? No promotions in a decade, and Mac knew that it wasn't because of strange rumors…after all Buddy Garrity could be told on too, from the tree house days, right? And, except for that hand job he'd given Billy Riggins in '03, Mac had never behaved inappropriately around his boys. Mac had a fishing trip (or hunting, in winter) twice a month with a nice bearded assistant manager from the Auto Zone, and now and then he "walked the dog" in his old, familiar park…but that was all.

There was no one who spent more time with the boys, helping them out, giving them massages. Just before Jason Street's accident, Mac had given him a good long massage, and Jason had told Mac that there were no better hands in the State of Texas.

"Includin' your girlfriend?" Mac had asked jocularly. Take that, missy.

Mac had really given his all for the boys, and it was just sad that he wasn't appreciated; he hoped no one thought of him as "light in the loafers" After all, Mac, at sixty-one, still bench pressed 250!

Not that Eric Taylor wasn't a good head coach, but damn it, Mac had seniority. And certainly the Jason Street tragedy wouldn't have happened on Mac's watch…it was rumored that Eric had never trained Jason to tackle with his head up, which was safer.

Mac had actually mentioned this theory to a fella he'd been in a friendly wrestle with in the park, a Jewish chap who it turned out, was a personal injury lawyer, who, as it happened was partners with the lawyer representing Jason Street.

Eric Taylor was not happy about the tackling rumor, but one good thing was about Mac's secret life, Taylor would never connect fat, balding, burly Mac McGill with a queer little kike with a law office in the strip mall in East Dillon, hey?

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Eric Taylor. Although Mac liked Eric, he was a masculine fella, reminded Mac of Buster Crabbe in the "Tarzan" movies. Once Eric had showered here at the school, and Mac had had to retrieve, uh, something from the locker room, and it was quite an eyeful.

But I'm no pervert, no I ain't. Shit, Reverend Blundell told Mac how much he liked it when Mac held his balls in his mouth, "mouth like velvet" and that was a man of God!

Mac had been a good citizen, and was junior warden of his church, Boy Scout Master Emeritus, despite having no sons, and under the table, doorkeeper of the Oriole Avenue White Citizen's Council. (They had a sign saying they were Masons, but everybody knew.)

He and Betsy were grandparents now, but maybe he should try to focus on helping young Matt Saracen…after all, it was partially due to Mac that Jeff was gone, right?

Mac looked carefully at Matthew Saracen, who had now come back from the shower. What a fine looking young chap he was…Mac wiped his bald head. Perhaps he'd best leave someone else to help Saracen; a little devotion might not be good just now.


End file.
